You can add photos of real world objects to your journal, thanks to the tablet's built in camera. (Source: Gizmodo)

The site's built in touch-driven browser lets you find even more content for your entries. (Source: Gizmodo)

More details emerge about Microsoft's Courier tablet

News of Microsoft's experimental
Courier tablet broke
last week and turned a number of heads. With Apple
reportedly racing
to release a similar tablet, Microsoft has stolen the thunder of its
competitor.

Speaking of which, it now appears the tablet's
interface is running on top of a modified version of Windows 7.
And it's reportedly a "incubation project" not a "Microsoft
Research project", meaning that it is headed towards a
commercial release. And according
toZDNet's Mary Jo-Foley that release will be coming in
mid-2010.

A new
video from Microsoft's Pioneer Studios revealed many details
about the new device. At its heart is the "Infinite
Journal" -- think Microsoft Office or OneNote on steroids.
Everything from meeting reminders to the browser, and even a
Photoshop-like stylus paint utility is tied into the journal.

Not
a virtual keyboard was in sight in the Infinite Journal demo -- all
text was entered via the Courier's stylus. You could flip
between pages in the journal, or you could switch to a browser and
flip through your favorites, in a format akin to Apple's much-touted
Cover Flow technology.

Anything you find online is journal
fodder -- you can drag images or text into your journal and add notes
to them. You can even remove part of photos and add your own
artistic finish. Cooler still, you can take a photo of an
object, and then it will be transferred to your journal. And
the journal has easy options to arrange the pictures you've
found.

You can share journal notes with your contacts (that
also come with jumbo color pictures flippable with the Cover
Flow-clone). And you can publish your entire journal online to
share with others. Reportedly, the journal will be publishable
in Courier, PDF, and PowerPoint formats.

According to ZDNet's
source, the tablet intentionally doesn't allow Windows 7 apps to be
installed, despite running on the OS. The source says that
early Microsoft tablet prototypes "failed because the
applications were not tailored to a tablet form factor - that is,
Word still had toolbars and menus and scrollbars. So, a tablet needs
to be like an iPhone - a UX that is specific for the form
factor."

Reportedly, Microsoft is excited enough about
the device that its not only targeting a release in under a year, but
it also may opt to produce it itself to get it to the market faster.
This is similar to the route Microsoft followed with the Xbox
360.

One thing's for sure, Microsoft's Windows 7-sporting dual
screen touch tablet screams cool and looks like a surefire hit if it
can live up to its demonstration video.

"Intel is investing heavily (think gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours) in resources to create an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology." -- Intel blogger Nick Knupffer